Featured

The most diverse House of Representatives in American history was sworn in on Thursday. The new Congress (including the Senate) is religiously diverse as well as diverse with regard to gender. Out of 534 members (one contest has yet to be decided), there are 34 Jews, 10 Mormons, 3 Hindus, 3 Muslims, and 2 Unitarian […]

Afghanistan

Trump Spews Incomprehensible Nonsense on Kurds, Syria, Afghanistan

Juan Cole

“A Commentary on the words that spewed from Trump’s mouth at his news conference during a cabinet meeting on January 2, 2019,” or, “A Ph.D. who has been teaching at a public Ivy since 1984 is forced to spend his time chasing the rabid ferrets running around in the head of a decrepit reality t.v. […]

Featured

Saudi Arabia muscles Netflix over Minhaj Criticism of Khashoggi Murder

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Netflix has been forced to pull Episode 2 of comedian Hasan Minhaj’s “Patriot Act” for Saudi viewers because it criticizes the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi on October 2 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, in which a bone saw was used to cut up the corpse. Netflix points […]

al-Qaeda

Trump’s US in 2019: Is the Mideast ‘War on Terror’ Paradigm Ending?

Juan Cole

Juan Cole (Informed Comment) – The primary post 9/11 paradigm of US foreign policy has been the war on terrorism, which is to say a profound and kinetic military and counter-insurgency engagement of the US Pentagon, CIA and State Department in the Greater Middle East. This paradigm succeeded the Cold War paradigm of 1946-1991, which […]

Featured

2018: Saudis Made a Play for Regional Hegemony and Tripped over a Single Murder

Juan Cole

The arrogant and impatient young Mohammed Bin Salman, who shouldered aside a raft of uncles and cousins to grab power as crown prince, is something new in Saudi history. The Al Saud, the royal family, had functioned as an oligarchy, but King Salman and his hyperactive son have concentrated power in their hands in an […]

Featured

Are Saudis Deploying Army of Sudanese child-soldiers in Yemen?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times caused an international stir by estimating that 20 percent of Sudanese fighters in Yemen may be 13-17, i.e. child soldiers. The percentage may be as high as 40%. That these child soldiers appear to have been paid for by Saudi Arabia at a […]

Featured

Germany’s Electricity 38% Renewable in 2018, more than Coal for 1st Time

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Germany, a pioneer in renewables among the advanced industrial economies, now gets 38% of its electricity from renewables. In the United States the proportion of electricity generated by renewables is only about 20%, about half as much as Germany, because of the opposition to green energy of Big Oil, Big […]

Featured

Abandoned by Trump, Syrian Kurds frantically turn to Moscow for Protection from Turkey

Juan Cole

Anton Lavrov, a military analyst, writes in the pro-Putin Russian newspaper Izvestia that the withdrawal of US troops from northeast Syria will mainly affect the fate of the Kurds (via BBC Monitoring). He notes that the US has provided the YPG with armored vehicles and antitank missiles and a great deal of ammunition. These medium […]

Featured

Shiite Parties Decry Trump’s ‘Arrogant’ and ‘Disdainful’ Visit to Iraq, Ignoring Iraqis

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump’s surprise visit to a US military base in Iraq on the day after Christmas has provoked a strong critique among some Iraqis, who mind that Trump slipped in and out to visit the Ain al-Assad base in al-Anbar Province but did not bother to meet with any Iraqi officials. […]